Hey, hi, hello, everyone. Anthony Fantano here, the Internet's busiest music nerd.

Let's pause. Let's take a deep breath and jump into yet another what I think is essential conversation around music discourse. Now, a lot of videos and conversations I've had around this topic thus far mostly orient around the platforms themselves that most music discourse is happening on today in terms of certain and tweets and points of view and posts and comments and narratives repeatedly being thrown in front of us algorithmically because the platforms that are showing us these things know these posts are polarizing, know they're going to elicit reactions from people and keep users locked into the site, locked into the app, arguing, reading, getting more and more heated.

As much as I still think the way these platforms operate is really the route to a lot of the issues with online music discourse today, there's only so much blame I think we can lay at the feet of a Reddit or a Twitter or an Instagram or a TikTok here. Because along with all of this, we do have untold numbers of individuals who are all voluntarily taking part in what we currently know as "Stan culture," which manifestsests in a lot of ways, many of which are pretty toxic, especially in spaces like Twitter, where you see hardcore fans or Stans of any number of artists engaging in some pretty nasty, combative, and aggressive behavior, a lot of which has very little to do with actually celebrating the music and the art of the artist they supposedly care about so much.

I mean, outside of constantly repeating and reposting monthly listener numbers and Billboard chart positions and all manner of pointless and sometimes inflated industry numbers to make the artists that they're such a big fan of look like they're the best. And when you're not seeing that, you may see fans of particular artists and particular stand groups who are just like shitting on other artists in that genre, be they rappers or pop stars, what have you, literally for no reason whatsoever ever.

At this point, I can't tell you how many Swift posts I've seen in my life where they're seemingly just going out of their way to shit on Beyoncé for why? Being in the position I am as a critic, I've pretty much gotten hate from every single music fandom at some point. Sometimes it's gotten to the point where we're not even dealing in reality, where people will run away with insane parasocial narratives about me in their head. Cue the "Anthony is misogynist," Fiona Apple copypasta, or even make up entirely fake tweets about me.

But we're now moving into an era of Twitter Standom where we're not just simply dealing in posts anymore. We are now starting to get art reflecting toxic, ugly, hideous Twitter Stan culture. And considering there's a new technology out there on the internet currently that makes it really easy to make music. Where do you think this is going? That's right. We now have a shitty Twitter Stan AI-generated slop music.

This AI generated figure has a weird little cult following on music Twitter currently. Many of their tweets and posts are so stereotypically Twitter Stan culture that I'm wondering if this is a performance piece or an elaborate joke of some sort.

But one thing I will point out that's funny is that some of the lyrics in this person's music come across as overtly social justice-oriented or at least concerned with people who might be racist or sexist against Taylor Swift, that thing, which for your average Swift, I feel like that's a pretty basic and understandable position to take. Not really surprising, considering how Taylor Swift has portrayed herself as far as her personal politics and social politics go.

But with that being said, this person has released numerous songs that have titles and lyrics that are just overtly transphobic. So how this person rationalizes, I guess, concern for certain groups of people, but then outright hatred and disrespect for others, I don't really know. I mean, making multiple albums of toxic Twitter Stan music isn't exactly normal behavior to begin with. So looking for logic here, I may be trying to squeeze blood from a stone.

I'm really prefacing too much and wasting too much time because what I really want to talk about here is a particular song on this new album, which is actually about me. Yeah, it's about how I don't know anything about art. And so I wanted to listen to it and see if it makes some fair points. So let's go ahead and do it.

"It's been a long time coming, but here we are."

Okay, just a few seconds in, I want to say I just love the really edgy, badass vibe that's going on with this track. Oh, man, this song is like, it's really going to give it to me. It sounds so mean. It sounds so righteous. It's got that distorted bass. It's going to do something real badass here. It's going to be spitting some truth. And that's me just inferring based upon what I have heard of art before.

"That ugly ass critic has evil in his heart. If you hate women that badly, keep them out of your mind."

Oh, my God. I don't think I'm perfect. I mean, there are lots of things about me that I am very insecure about sometimes. I just find it so tired and boring that we have to walk out the "Anthony Fantano hates women" line. Some of my most positive and rave reviews of all time are of women's music. And when you look at the brunt of my most negative reviews and my not goods and all of that stuff, it's mostly guys.

I'm sorry, just because I don't love a particular album from your favorite particular female pop artist, it doesn't mean I hate women in general. And the fact that you can only name four women is honestly more disrespectful to women from you than me. Taylor Swift is not the only woman on the planet.

"So which girl turned your ugly ass down and broke your predatory heart in the bathroom? / When they said this room's for girls, get the fuck out. / You're jobless, got no reason to exist. It's honest, there's a reason I talk shit. And shut the fuck up."

Okay, wait a second. One, this is my job. I'm doing my job right now. It's not a normal job. It's definitely one of the weirder jobs I have ever worked. Definitely weirder than working in radio and cooking pizza at a pizza place. I'm not going to say it's the hardest, toughest job in the world, or sit here and act like I'm out here having it harder than coal miners.

But in comparison with what this person is doing right now with this song and with this album, this is far more jobless than I could ever be. This is the most jobless thing I've ever seen or could possibly imagine. Making multiple toxic Twitter Stan music albums? That is peak joblessness.

"With your feminist talk, your a grown ass man with your four-inch cock."

Wait, with my feminist talk? I hate women with my feminist talk? Also, I mean, shout out my four-inch cock.

"Anthony Fantano doesn't know anything about art / Pushin' 50, usin' Gen Z slang. Who let this grandpa think he's in the gang? Type shit!"

I feel like I don't use that much Gen Z slang unless it's really truly something that I need to say to make sure that my audience knows what the hell I'm talking about. But again, this is the thing that you deal with on the internet if you have anybody paying attention to you whatsoever. People who suffer from severely deep levels of psychosis will grab or glom on to three or four shreds of information about you or things they've heard second-hand in conversation with other people. And then they'll immediately build a narrative around that. "He's pushing 40. He gave an album this score. He got a divorce." And then go absolutely insane places with it, which is why I don't really say a whole lot about myself on the internet to begin with, outside of what music I like.

"You keep yapping with those contradictions. It's an addiction. That's my prediction."

You keep yapping those contradictions? It's an addiction It's my prediction?

"Who broke your predatory heart in the bathroom when they said this room's for girls. Get the fuck out. / You're jobless, got no reason to exist. It's honest, there's a reason I talk shit."

As much as I am laughing at this, and I think it is very nutty, and there are parts of it that I think are kind of funny, that somebody would go this far to do this. Simultaneously, just throwing around terms "predatory" is so goddamn weird.

This is the, again, psychotic cult-like behavior that people adopt into their own heads when they liken the enjoyment of their favorite artist with morality. "I'm a good person, and my favorite artist is a good person, and I'm a good person for liking my favorite artist. And anybody who doesn't like my favorite artist, the reason they're not liking my favorite artist is because they must be evil in their heart, in their soul, and they do the worst things you could possibly imagine. And whatever reason they don't like my favorite artist, it must have nothing to do with their music or their personality or their behavior in any way. And it's got to do with some terrible thing that they did or terrible thing that happened to them, like getting dumped in high school. No!"

Terrible song, terrible project. We should have never let Twitter Stans use AI. I'm not really sure what else to say or add here other than that I'm disgusted. This is gross. This is weird. It's unnecessary. Really, truly, honestly, get a goddamn job.

Because even if on some level, this is somehow all an ironic bit of performance art, it's still a bit too much and maybe further evidence that satire is dead. But yeah, that's going to be it as far as this topic goes. Let me know what you think about all this down in the comments. I'm sure you will.

Anthony Fantano doesn't know anything about art. Forever.